Toss the past year's media guides and the worthless, outdated information
they contain? Or allow them their favored place on your desk, knowing there
will never be another to replace them?

Will we squeeze every last paragraph of pertinent information before
placing them in a box with the old Radio Shack TRS-80? Do they become collector's
items? Or will they just be taking up space?

As we all by now, the printed media guide is going the way of the Walkman.
While there is still a chance that the elimination of printed media guides
will not be legislated next season by the NCAA, that day appears to be coming.
The idea became a reality when Ohio State, Michigan and Wisconsin announced
in late may that they not only would print no media guides this season,
but that they were encouraging other schools to follow suit.

"With Ohio State and Michigan together making this statement, I hope
our decision will be a catalyst for other schools to follow suit,” Ohio
State Athletic Director Gene Smith said in a written statement.

Which probably eliminates Mr. Smith from any consideration for this year's
Katha Quinn Award, given annually to a friend of the college-basketball
media.

I sat in on a CoSIDA conference call about a week after the announcement
by the three Big Ten schools. It was enlightening. A few schools were very
proud of themselves – perhaps a bit too proud – for their roles in the move
toward digital media guides. Others showed genuine concern about how the
absence of printed guides would affect reporters' abilities to cover their
teams.

Concerns over the elimination of media guides might be too little, too
late, but they were raised during the CoSIDA call. How will broadcasters
look up information in press-row seating too tight to allow a laptop among
their other equipment? Will network researchers who need immediate information
be able to find and navigate through a school's Web site with the speed
of flicking through a media guide? these are all concerns raised by the
SIDs.

And for what it's worth, CoSIDA executive director John Humenik acknowledged
organization's role in the printed media guide's demise, for failing to
step up when NCAA legislation allowed the guides to grow to the size of
phone books about 20 years ago and then when coaches were allowed to turn
the guides into recruiting materials. We are, in other words, losing a valuable
resource through no fault of our own.

Last summer, Michigan, Ohio State and Wisconsin were merely the most
visible of about 50 Division I schools that announced they would immediately
cease printing media guides. There is also a proposal by the Pacific-10
Conference to do away with printed media guides, in favor of providing guides
in .pdf form. some schools would make Kinko's style printouts for the local
media, and some conferences have provided thumb drives of all their schools'
.pdf-version media guides at media days.

Humenik and Bloom expect the NCAA to rule on the proposals at their meeting
in January.

Humenik recently said he believes that about a third of the schools side
with the Pac-10 proposal, believing it is the financially and environmentally
responsible stance and, as both the media and university athletic departments
become younger, simply the way of a changing world.

Indeed, this seems a generational debate, with the greatest opposition
coming from the oldest of dinosaurs. even those among us in that category
must grudgingly concede that it will be easier to carry around a thumb drive
containing several media guides than a bagful of printed guides. A word
search can be faster than page-turning. Eventually, schools and conferences
might be able to produce "living" media guides with updated statistics,
results and records, and that would be nice.

While it is difficult to accept the cost-containment argument from the
money-making BCS crowd, the savings are no doubt necessary for Division
I's majority.

There is a proposal by the southeastern Conference that would allow 208-page
guides to be printed but not be distributed to recruits. in theory, that
would eliminate promotional material from guides and return to them to their
original role as – get this – guides for the media.

Humenik believes there are two other groups of thirds that are rooting
for the SEC proposal. One group supports the guides at all costs. another
views them as at least a necessary transitional phase. Folks from these
groups might argue that the elimination of printed media guides was never
a "green" issue before the economy tanked. they might even argue that, as
long as there are still arms races over facilities and coaches' salaries,
the elimination of printed guides is more about spending priorities than
it is actual cost-containment. already, an arms race is developing among
schools' Web sites.

Even if the SEC proposal wins – and SEC author Charles Bloom concedes
that he is hopeful but not as optimistic as Humenik – the long-term prognosis
for printed media guides is not so good.

"If I had to put money, at this time next year, there will be no printed
guides – period," Humenik said. "I think the cost-containment group will
win out. I hope not. i personally would like to see them continue to be
printed and that it would be a media-friendly position for the first time
in a long time. maybe we'll get lucky and get the SEC rule for a year or
two. But clearly, clearly, in three years at the max, we're not going to
have printed guides. it just isn't going to happen."

•

This season, please be on the lookout for the outstanding under-30 segment
of this organization. it could be that person who has already landed a job
at a major news organization or who covers a major beat for a newspaper.
It could be a young reporter who is finding his or her own way on a smaller
newspaper or through a blog or some other creative means of expression.
it could be that aggressive college writer who is scooping the veterans
daily. the USBWA will recognize the best of them with our first Rising Star
Award. Send nominations to me at johna19081@gmail.com or to
Nicole Vargas at nicole.vargas@uniontrib.com.